92 FOSSIL MAMMALIA. 



Structure. We shall not pursue the Baron in his extensive 

 and luminous survey of the osteology of the daman and living 

 tapirs, which, for his purpose, was a necessary introduction to 

 the examination of the rest of the ancient fossil pachydermata, 

 but would suit neither our plan nor limits. We shall proceed 

 . at once to these extinct animals, and endeavour to compress 

 our comparisons within as brief a space as possible. 



Remains of these gigantic tapirs have been found in a 

 variety of places in the South of France. These remains, 

 with the exception of a radius, consist entirely in molar teeth. 

 These teeth exhibit the closest affinity to those of the existing 

 tapirs in all their forms, but more especially in their transverse 

 hillocks ; but they were all of them of dimensions far surpass- 

 ing those of the teeth of our living tapirs, and clearly indi- 

 cating species of gigantic size. Still it would be necessary to 

 find the incisors and canines to establish the complete resem- 

 blance of the dentition of these animals to the tapir. For, in 

 truth, the tapir is not the only animal possessing the kind of 

 teeth above described. The lamantin and kangaroo are in the 

 same predicament. In the kangaroo, there are two hillocks, 

 and even a line descending obliquely to the external edge, 

 exactly resembling a germ of one of the tapiroidian teeth 

 above mentioned. The kangaroo also has six molars in youth, 

 and the first compressed and triangular. The lamantin has 

 nine molars, the first of which only is triangular, the others 

 are square, with two crenulated hillocks, just like the tapirs 

 in question, and two heels, one before and one behind. 



But the radius which I mentioned before, and which was 

 found with some teeth at Carlat-le-Comte, a small town near 

 the Pyrenees, was sufficient to determine the Baron to decide 

 that the animal to which it belonged appertained to neither of 

 the above genera. Its short and rounded form corresponded 

 to no animal but the tapir, and its size bears a proportion to 

 that of the teeth, nearly analogous to what is observed in 

 living tapirs. Besides, the lamantin has this bone much more 



